Fallout Equestria: The Ashlands Timeline

Tuesday, 10/25/2287
POV: Kamikaze
Stable 27

‘Sheesh, she’s gonna freak if she figures out why they went in there,’ Kamikaze thought, though she smirked at the thought of them getting freaky instead.

Kamikaze assumed the idea was to get Twilight changed into the stable suit out of sight to hide her wings. A lot of good it’d do; the stable suits auto-sized themselves for a pony’s body, so stuffing extra wings inside would be a task. The armored suit Twilight already had on hid that much better, but if she kept that on, security would eventually force her to remove it.

Not that getting freaky with an alicorn was a bad idea; Kamikaze wondered what that’d be like. Kamikaze still wished there was a stallion somewhere in here, but if she had to settle, she’d go for the alicorn first. There was no telling what kinky magical horse apples she could get up to in the sack.

‘Wow, that was insensitive,' Kamikaze thought to herself. Was that who Kamikaze was? An insensitive jerk? She was starting to worry.

The Pies were finally both dressed in their stable outfits, though Pinkie was still suspicious of everything, and both suspected Kamikaze. They’d have killed her had the Empress not been more level-headed than them. She couldn’t blame them, since if the roles were reversed, she’d want to kill them too.

As she thought about it, it bothered her more. The machine identified her as an enemy of Equestria. She was wearing a different uniform than the others, and Twilight was reluctant to give them details about what happened before the time jump. Had they all been fighting Kamikaze? As cool as it would be if she held her own against them all, she didn’t want to be the enemy.

She wasn’t sure why it bothered her. If she opposed them, then that’s the way it was. She shouldn’t feel guilty about it, so why did she? Memory flashes returned, some of fighting for Equestria, nearly giving her life for it several times. Only a few featured Kamikaze fighting against Equestria, and she hadn’t remembered why she changed sides.

One might think it was because of what Daybreaker did, except that Daybreaker was dead at the end, and she didn’t get the impression that Equestrians were okay with what Daybreaker did either. What would have caused her to betray them?

And now Mercury told her they purged the pegasi outside. Had Kamikaze’s actions resulted in a genocide of her own species?

That was why Kamikaze needed to help though. Even though Starlight was Empress of a dead kingdom and being her minion was more a chore than an honor, she had to make up for things she didn’t remember. Maybe that way, it’d be less traumatizing when she did remember.

The alicorn’s presence made it more confusing. Kamikaze couldn’t deny that she felt something for the mare. But if Twilight was a version of their ‘Midnight’, then who Kamikaze had feelings for was this ‘devil’. Kamikaze wanted to think she didn’t know how bad Midnight was before, but was that all there was to it? And wasn’t Midnight always an enemy of Equestria? Her own actions still made no sense to her without proper context.

A surge of intense pain interrupted Kamikaze’s thoughts, spreading downward from her head and echoing through her whole body. Everywhere that her flesh connected with the arcane steel stung like a thousand angry hornets, as had happened several times an hour at random. Even when the stinging died down, there was an intense ache, like a constant tooth ache all over her body. Her face would occasionally itch intensely between the real and artificial halves, but she tried not to scratch it when somepony was looking.

She played it all off with only a twitch; she was getting good at that quickly. It felt like something she had gotten used to not showing, but the temporary memory loss required her to get used to it again. She wanted it to be temporary or fixable, but had a sick feeling it was a permanent part of her condition.

“Are you okay?” Mercury asked. Kamikaze had forgotten she was even talking to her because of the surge of pain.

“Yeah, I’m fan-bucking-tastic,” Kamikaze growled.

“Did I do something wrong?” Poor Mercury was easy to confuse.

“Nah,” Kamikaze assured, forcing herself to smirk. “I’m sure the excruciating pain is just a byproduct of being awesome.”

“Solar, what are you doing here again?” a guard outside commented. “Visiting hours are over, let your crush rest.”

“I’m not here for my crush,” Solar said, not denying the assertion. “I’m here for the new arrivals, to bring them pipbucks, several of them didn’t have one. And… I need to get the ID on the other pipbucks so we can track them.”

It sounded suspiciously like Solar was making it up on the fly, though Kamikaze doubted for nefarious purposes. She was pretty sure she knew what purposes it'd be for.

“And here’s Solar,” sighed Mercury. “She’s going to adore you, metal mare.”

“She already does,” smirked Kamikaze. “We said hi on my way in and I thought she might collapse into a puddle of her affections.”

“I guess that's why she's here,” chuckled Mercury, sitting back on the bed. “Here we go.”

“Why isn’t the pipbuck technician delivering them?” asked the guard, used to this sort of game with Solar.

“She’s in medical again, sadly,” Solar's concern almost sounded real.

“Oh, for Break’s ashes, did she get into the party-time mentats again?” the second guard asked.

“Possibly, yes,” Solar chuckled nervously. “She got into Mercury’s stash when it was unprotected. And took them all. Of her own free will. Without anypony slipping them into her drink.”

Kamikaze shook her head. She’d have to watch her drink if she ever met Solar in a bar.

“Last time she did that,” the first guard sighed, “She hallucinated and called herself ‘the Light Bringer’.”

“She might have!” agreed Solar. “Either way, I got to get these inside.”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t take too long,” the guard agreed. “And don't buck any of them; they're from outside, so they might have crotch rot or something.”

The blindingly bright pegasus hopped into the room, almost tripping on her way to the cell door, a bright grin on her face. She stopped barely shy of slamming face-first into the glass.

Kamikaze’s visual systems analyzed her and highlighted her in green within Kamikaze’s vision. It was annoying to have ponies highlighted when looked at, but Kamikaze thought it best to keep it on. She wanted warning if the Pies suddenly turned violent towards her.

“Hey, Mercury,” Solar greeted. “Making friends with the new hotties?” Her eyes went to Kamikaze, “And hello to you.”

“Hello yourself,” Kamikaze smiled slyly. “Here to plug into my ports?”

Honestly, this one was too spastic for her taste, but it’d be useful to keep her in a flirty mood. Aroused creatures tended toward babbling important information to impress the object of their interest.

“Oh, am I, brought you a pipbuck too,” Solar responded with a grin, flexing out her wings slightly at the positive response. “Lookin’ good in a stable suit, Miss Dashie. So, are you like… the Rainbow Dash?”

“That’s me,” grinned Kamikaze, stiffening her own wings for visual effect. “I go by Kamikaze. And no worries, I have one of those internally. Our ali… purple unicorn needs one though.”

“Internally? Seriously?” Solar’s eyes glistened like a filly being shown an ice cream house. “You know, that port just above your left ear looks pipbuck compatible. Mind if I…”

Kamikaze quirked her ears, reaching her metal fore hoof up to slide over her head. Sure enough she had a port just above her left ear. That was nice to know, she guessed. She hoped just anyone couldn’t plug into that while she slept, though.

“Solar, for crying out loud,” Mercury placed a hoof on her own forehead. This must have been a common complaint with Solar.

“I’m just making a delivery!” claimed Solar.

“I don’t mind,” Kamikaze assured. “Come on in, just use protection.”

“I do like coming in,” Solar grinned, then blinked. “Protection? I don’t think I can check out armor without authorization…”

“Never mind,” Kamikaze rolled her eyes. “You can come in.”

Solar called to the guards, “You gonna open the cell so I can hoof these over?”

The cell’s door slid open remotely, though Solar jumped in with such excitement she slammed into the glass before it opened fully. She plopped the two pipbucks she brought atop the table in the cell as if they no longer mattered and turned to Kamikaze. She pulled a corded plug from one side of her own pipbuck with her muzzle.

Kamikaze could hear her hyperventilating as she took several attempts to plug it into Kamikaze’s head. She wondered if Solar had difficulty on purpose so she could get a nuzzle in; she could have sworn she felt Solar lick where the metal connected with skin. All in all, this was a terrible idea, but Kamikaze was as curious as Solar on what she’d find.

When Solar succeeded, a little ‘pop up’ projected over Kamikaze’s cyber-eye with a long message about what might happen to her if she lets the wrong entity connect to her. Yeah, she didn’t feel like reading that. She focused her eyes and blinked to click it away. Solar giggled again like a school filly when she received access.

Not wanting to take too much of a chance, Kamikaze tugged Solar’s leg over so she could look at her pipbuck screen too. It displayed a list of statistics about her cybernetic systems. Mark VI positronic brain, A17 cybernetic prototype limbs, mechanite healing factor, blood filter, automagic defense system, armored womb, and a pipbuck model 3000A Mk IV. It had brand emblems for the ‘Ministry of Wartime Technology’, ‘Ministry of Arcane Science’, and ‘Ministry of Awesome’. Those names seemed familiar, especially the last one; she highly suspected she came up with that name herself.

“This is amazing,” Solar squee-ed like the fanfilly she was. “You even have alicorn upgrade capability! I didn’t know they managed that! The energy it’d take to duplicate all three types of pony magic at once in a single cyborg…”

“Yeah well,” Kamikaze shrugged, “I doubt that upgrade is available anymore, and I wouldn’t trust myself with it, anyway. Some things are just too amazing to exist.”

“That would be amazing,” Mercury piped up, still listening, “I read you had upgrades you didn’t get because of, you know, defecting prior to being completed. I didn’t know it was that though.”

“I need to brush up on history,” Solar commented, “It’s just that it’s rarely this interesting!”

Either way, Solar was getting excited about this. Her wings fully extended, and she held her hind legs tightly together like she was trying to stifle a raging heat. Her legs quivered so much that it was a feat for her to continue standing. It was probably best if Kamikaze pulled the plug on it before Solar passed out. The connector stung more the longer it was in, anyway.

“Enough,” Kamikaze decided, and the port automagically ejected the plug. The cord retracted back into Solar’s pipbuck, prompting a ‘connection aborted’ error across her eyes. “So, is getting a look at me the only reason you pretended to bring us pipbucks?”

“Nah,” Solar said, sounding disappointed as the connection broke, but not denying that she came under false pretenses. “I wanted to look at Starlight’s pipbuck model 4000 too. There were only a few made and the specs aren’t in our database, so I’d like to see its capabilities. Also, your non-metal parts are pretty fascinating too! The armored womb upgrade implies that your fun bits are still fully functional, so I wouldn't mind using them!... You know, for science.”

“Solar,” Mercury warned, “These ponies are guests.”

“No rule against impregnating guests,” shrugged Solar, apparently having disregarded the guard's advice about avoiding potential crotch rot. “So what kind of creatures are out there? Like… griffons, dragons, diamond dogs, zebras, sea ponies, and such? One thing about history I do like is all the different species. I got a whole list I’d love to meet.”

“Meet or mate?” Mercury sighed.

“Both, obviously,” Solar rolled her eyes.

“Not sure what’s left alive,” Kamikaze grunted. “May not even be pegasi out there, though we met some bats on our way in. I guess you could come with us when we go to see. I doubt they’ll let us stay.”

“Nah, I can’t leave Mercury,” Solar smiled. “She’s worth more than a cross-species orgy.”

That was probably as close to sweet as Solar was capable. Solar seemed unashamed to flirt and talk like that in front of her crush, but Kamikaze chalked it up to cultural differences. Mercury seemed more annoyed than aghast, so maybe open relationships were the norm here. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing about this place.

“Are there… stallions on the outside?” Solar whispered, eyeing the security camera and facing so they couldn’t read her lips. “Do different creatures have different fun bits?” She got even quieter, “I read from a book in the archive that sea pony penises are prehensile. And that dragons have two!”

“Probably all different,” said Kamikaze. “I know griffon drakes have barbs. Who knows about the others; I’m not exactly a connoisseur.”

“You’ve done a griffon?” Solar asked with interest, trying to stay quiet, but getting louder due to excitement. “Was she good?... um, he, I mean.”

“I remember little of anything,” Kamikaze shook her head. “A griffon friend shared her boyfriend with me once when we were all drunk, he was fine I guess? Griffons are violent with it, but I’m good with rough.”

Banging a griffon was an arbitrary thing to remember. Kamikaze wished her returning memories had priorities.

“How about those two?” Solar asked, nodding over to Pinkie and Maud. The Pie sisters were watching the conversation, poised and probably ready to attack.

"We do not have penises," Maud said flatly, apparently having overheard.

"No," Solar chuckled, turning to Maud. "I mean do you want to-"

“I wouldn’t risk trying,” Kamikaze cut Solar off with the advice, especially when her highlighting system upgraded Pinkie from greenish yellow to a yellowish orange. Pinkie narrowed her eyes further; Kamikaze assumed she was picky with who flirted with her or Maud and Solar didn't make the cut.

“Please don’t try with them, Solar,” Mercury added, sounding worried for her friend’s safety. She added, as if desperate to change the subject, “Have they found Tranquil yet, Solar?”

“Apparently, she left the stable,” Solar said as if she could barely believe it. “No idea what madness drove her out there. Crimson was on her way out too, but she stopped to get the soul recycler and got caught.” A realization spread over her face and she looked at Kamikaze, “You didn’t see Tranquil out there, did you? Pegasus, blue-green coat, golden-white mane, cutie mark of a treble clef with horseshoe notes on it… She probably had on a blinder suit, though, so you’d not have seen any of that I guess.”

“Blinder suit?” Kamikaze tilted her head.

“Barrier against Light Incantations aND Excess Radiation,” Solar explained. “Kind of a stretch but that’s what they decided to call it.”

“Oh right,” Kamikaze said. “All we saw out there were the bat ponies that attacked us and a badass zombie with a sniper rifle.”

“The dark purple one with the straight mane?” asked Mercury.

“You know her?” Kamikaze quirked her ears.

“Poor thing,” Mercury said, “She scratches at the door sometimes. The Overmare said she’s been doing it ever since the Breaking, but we can’t let her in because she’ll contaminate us. And, you know, probably try to eat our brains.”

“Contaminate?” Kamikaze asked. That was strange, since the pony whose memories they watched only thought of ghouls as being aggressive, not of them contaminating anything by mere proximity. A pony that lived out there should have realized if that was often the case. Then again, there was that one stable guard terrified of having her mask removed outside in low radiation. It seemed likely they brainwashed these ponies to prevent them leaving.

“She didn’t bite you, did she?” Solar asked, taking a step back.

“No, we only saw her,” Kamikaze shook her head, “At a distance.” She decided not to go into details about the memory sphere. “She didn’t seem like a biter, either.”

“Come to think of it,” Mercury said, “She looks similar to Maud and Pinkie, almost like a color swap, other than being… rotted a bit.”

Maud and Pinkie’s eyes enlarged in realization together.

“The pegacorn may have withheld vital information and must be dealt with harshly!” Pinkie decided. “Yes.”

“Pegawhat?” Mercury asked.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Kamikaze tried to mitigate that reaction, but she wasn’t as good at calming as Starlight.

“Pinkie prefers jumping, yes,” Pinkie glared at Kamikaze. “She does not have wings like filthy featherbrains!”

“Featherwhat?” Solar tilted her head.

Kamikaze ignored Mercury’s earlier question, responding to Solar instead, “That’s a racial slur for pegasi. Good to know ponies in here don't use that on you, at least.” She looked to Pinkie, “The Empress told you to tone down the racism, Muddy.” That last word slipped out. Oops.

Maud narrowed her eyes so far that they were slits, clenching her jaw. As Kamikaze’s systems highlighted Maud briefly red, her cyber-body took a defensive stance automagically. She thought Maud was about to pound her for calling her sister a mud pony, but Maud turned and trotted toward the shower.

“Wait, don’t open that!” Kamikaze warned.

Maud didn’t listen, opening the glass door. The water was off, the ponies inside dry, and Starlight was trying to tuck Twilight’s wings into a uniform. It wasn’t working well, and they were very much visible.

“The ghoul we saw in the memory,” Maud looked at Twilight. “Is she related to us? Did you know?”

“Yes?” stammered Twilight, trying to back up to where she wasn’t visible to those outside. “She’s your sister, sorry I…”

“Why did you not tell us?” demanded Maud.

“It’s really her!” Mercury squealed, backing away.

Solar moved in front of Mercury as if to defend her, puffing her fur and feathers aggressively, but only looked unreasonably adorable by doing so. Both ponies looked irrationally scared, and might have run screaming with trails of urine behind them if Twilight charged. At the least it distracted Maud enough that Kami's systems downgraded her slowly towards yellow.

“Wait!” Starlight stepped out of the shower and shut Twilight inside. “It’s okay. Like I said, this isn’t who you think it is, she’s from another timeline, world, whatever. Look, if she was your devil, she wouldn’t come in, act civil, and let you dictate what she wears.” She added more quietly so that Twilight wouldn’t hear, “Especially not after your security system murdered her surrogate child.”

“I guess so,” Solar relaxed, still breathing heavily and flattening her ears in regret. “Sorry; didn't realize that happened.”

Starlight walked up and smiled gently, and for a moment Solar seemed mesmerized. Kamikaze thought it was just Starlight’s creepy charisma, thinking it odd that it would affect someone of Solar’s intelligence. Then she realized that Solar’s eyes focused on the pipbuck model 4000 on Starlight’s head, not Starlight herself. At least the mare had some decency, since that last misunderstanding left her too awkward to ask to see it outright.

“You like this?” Starlight took off her pipbuck, placing it upon Solar’s head instead.

It was a surprisingly risky move to put her own pipbuck onto another pony when only the wearer could remove one, but Starlight did seem to be a good judge of character. At least it'd get Solar’s mind off the shower demon.

Mercury calmed when Solar did, though she remained close to the cell door. Kamikaze trotted over to her and patted her shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kamikaze smirked. “Twilight's annoyingly harmless, more team mascot than evil goddess.”

Starlight turned to Maud while Solar was distracted. “Maud. We will find your sister in the ruins, I swear. Twilight was just scared; not everypony is as fearless as the Pies.”

“Wow!” Solar’s eyes brightened as soon as she had the more advanced pipbuck on her head, forgetting all else. She scrolled through all the functions and pages without effort, despite having never worn the advanced type. “All these features! A 3D projection instead of a flat map, networking other pipbucks, SATS targeting with multiple weapons simultaneously, a potion delivery system via the leg component, even PCB!”

“I’m sorry, what?” Starlight sounded surprised. “SATS… I remember that. A weapon targeting system? PCB sounds familiar too but…”

‘PCB stands for Psionic Canter-Banter, telepathic comms!’ Solar’s voice boomed in Kamikaze’s head, and presumably everypony else that had a pipbuck on, before repeating it aloud. She continued out loud. “SATS stands for Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting System. It puts you into a temporary time lock to give you time to aim and even gives you odds on hitting specific body parts.”

"Out of my head," Maud said coldly. "Before I remove yours."

“Pinkie did not give consent for the pegaslut to penetrate her brain parts!” Pinkie added, reaching to where her gun would normally be and thankfully not finding it there.

“Sorry,” Solar said aloud, “But PCB will be useful, you can use it during a fight and your opponent won’t hear your plans. The model 3000 can’t do that, though it should be able to network with the 4000 as the hub. It might be noisy for the one wearing the hub; I’m guessing she’ll hear all the PCB transmissions whether aimed at her or not. This is amazing, though, maybe more than Kamikaze.”

“I heard that,” grumbled Kamikaze.

“You seem to know a lot about them,” Starlight commented, pulling up the leg-strapped portion of her device and opening the hatch. Inside were three health potions and two rad-away potions, loaded and ready for injection if her pipbuck detected the need. “Nice. I’m fairly sure I invented this thing, it’s coming back. It’s a little weird to get lessons about something I made from someone that just now picked it up though. You're a bright one.”

Starlight held out a hoof at Solar and smiled. Solar shook the hoof at first, then realized what Starlight wanted a few moments later. She hooved Starlight’s pipbuck back to her, smiling sheepishly.

“Interesting,” Starlight said as she put it back on. “It only registers the pipbucks of my team, like it’s smart enough to know who to connect to.”

As they spoke, Twilight opened the door to the shower. She had resigned herself to dealing with terrified stable dwellers, having ripped slits in the suit for her wings instead of hiding them.

“I guess since the guards aren’t screaming yet,” commented Kamikaze. “...they probably aren’t paying attention to their monitors… probably not used to actual guarding.”

“The training here is appalling,” Maud monotoned.

Solar grabbed one of the pipbucks she’d brought, holding it out towards Twilight, but still too timid to step close.

“Thank you, miss,” Twilight nodded, floating it away from Solar’s shivering hoof with her magic and latching it onto her right leg. She looked at the screen with glazed eyes as it booted. She may have wanted to be fascinated, but was finding it hard to.

“There you go,” Solar smiled. “Now only you can take it off.”

“Only I can take it off?” Twilight froze as her eyes widened slightly. “Reminds me of a certain artifact I had to deal with once.”

“Yes, more of my memories are coming back,” Starlight said, “I think we developed that function after analyzing a magical amulet. Not to worry though: It won’t possess you like the amulet would. That’s a different functionality we didn’t figure out.”

“Would you have used it if you figured it out?” Twilight’s wide eyes turned from the contraption to Starlight.

“Well, possessing enemies would be useful,” Starlight said. “Sombra used it to great effect. We would have only used it appropriately, of course.”

‘We should think about our next move,’ Maud’s voice boomed in Kamikaze’s head as she used the PCB. ‘If we remain here, we must place the Empress in command.’

“Pinkie will personally kick the Overmare’s head in!” Pinkie blurted out loud. “And put the Empress’s shapely behind in her seat. Yes.”

“What?” Solar and Mercury asked together.

“Ignore her,” Maud said. “She blurts out random threats sometimes. She was seeing a therapist for it before they all died.”

“If you say so…” Mercury looked uncertain.

Maud narrowed her eyes at Pinkie and added telepathically, ‘Use the PCB, Pink.’

‘We can do this without violence,’ Starlight told the team. ‘We need more information, but it doesn’t seem like everypony trusts Chrome, and those that do only because no one else challenged her. We can use that. Maybe we could even alter Crimson’s rehabilitation programming to make her…’

‘Should brainwashing really be considered as an acceptable option?’ Twilight butted in on the thoughts.

‘You’re already the Empress,’ pointed out Kamikaze. ‘Their own machine identified you. Doesn’t that mean you’re already in charge? Just convince their leader of who you are, and they’ll follow.’

“Why did everyone get quiet?” Solar asked, too bright to be fooled right after she told them about the PCB, but also dreamily admiring Kamikaze’s metal wing.

Starlight looked like she was about to make a crafty excuse for their silence, but was interrupted herself as the stable alarm sounded.

“Incursion detected by the New Lunar Republic. Defense systems on standby. Advice: Reactivate defense systems.”

A sudden tremor followed, rattling the cell and leaving those standing either clinging to a wall to stabilize themselves or falling onto their plot.

“That didn’t happen last time,” observed Solar. She pulled up her pipbuck, tuning the not-so-psionic CB to what must have been the stable’s security frequency.

"No, she’s really here this time!" a voice screamed over the open channel. "She blasted her way through the stable door with her horn! The entire atrium is in flames!"

“Security?” Solar said over the open comms, “That door is orichalcum alloy; you can’t blast through it with magic! And what about the automagic defenses?”

“Tell her she can’t blast through it!” the guard replied. “The automagic defenses aren’t activating, we don’t know-”

The grotesque sound of tearing flesh cut them off. It reduced the guard’s voice to the gurgling sound of choking on her own blood. Another voice spoke over the radio: Twilight’s. Yet it could only be Midnight.

“Starlight, I’m coming to kill you! Kill!” Midnight laughed. There was a dull thump as she dropped the guard’s body, her laughter growing distant before the radio shut off.

“S-she…” Solar stared wide-eyed after listening to murder in real time, probably of someone she knew.

‘These ponies are not mentally equipped for this kind of crisis,’ Kamikaze thought, adding aloud. “We need to stop this.”

“Her,” Twilight muttered under her breath. “She’s responsible for all this… for…” The air around Twilight rose a few degrees in seconds, her eyes positively sparkling with rage.

Great. Just what Kamikaze needed, an invasion by her ex-marefriend. Or current marefriend? She wished that memory had stayed forgotten, because this could be an awkward break-up.